Blogs: That's So MIT

After arriving at MIT in September, I was excited to begin rotating in labs. I did my research, so I knew what professors I wanted to work with. I was ready to meet labmates, do some projects, and find a lab I matched with.
Little did I know that some professors not only ran their own lab but also...

When the movie Arrival came out in 2016, I was overjoyed: for the first time, a woman linguist was the main character in a Hollywood movie, not to mention the fact that the linguistic consultant of this film – ...

After seventeen years of being a student at three different schools, in three different countries. I have come to the resounding conclusion that students can more or less be placed into three categories based on how they procrastinate: the always-overachiever, the workaholic socialite, and the...

Five years ago, I ate a red velvet muffin every morning for about six weeks. It was the first semester of my freshman year, and I enjoyed the community of regulars that came with this breakfast ritual. The muffins were always these amorphous, half-goo red masses with too much sugar and never enough...

"Wow, you're at MIT? You must be a genius!"
Um. Not sure how to answer that. Look down at my shoes. Nervous laugh. "Uh, thanks?"
The random passerby who saw my MIT shirt and just had to comment on my presumed brilliance seems satisfied with my response. Perhaps the "awkward genius" trope played in...

Understanding what graduate student life is like at MIT is challenging for an outsider. Before I arrived, I had preconceived notions about what the student body would be like: ultra-nerdy kids that participated in hackathons on the weekend and probably couldn’t chug a beer. While admittedly some of...

This may sound crazy, but for a brief time, I pictured MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department as only women.
Yes, this happened.
Due to a weirdly warped golden recall of MIT’s Visit Weekend, I somehow only remember the Saturday Pancake Breakfast for women in EECS: A...

Sometimes I tell people that I'm a theoretical computer scientist. If they haven't yet found some sort of excuse to go to the bathroom before I take my next breath, the next question is often an exasperated, "What does that even mean?"
I tell them that it's sort of like math except that instead...

I’m a first year graduate student in Materials Science and Engineering, or "Course 3" to anyone who’s familiar with MIT’s classification system for majors (more on this later). I’m on my way to a PhD (or as my good friend calls it – Permanent Head Damage, Piled Higher and Deeper, Pretty Huge...

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
No! Thank you but no. I will not be going. Your magic and professors and creatures are wondrous, sure. But your stairs?...